Wanted
by 0lemons0
Summary: A Mustang with an unlikely partner in crime. It's hard for her to be taken seriously, since she's a woman, but those who dare challenge her path find out very quickly that she's not the dainty western girl they see at first glance.


**Chapter 1 "Hiding"**

The Mojave's midnight wind whispered against the creaking wood of a small and rustic cabin. It must have been charming at some point, but the wood started to peel and an eerie light came from the inside and could be seen through small holes in the rotting wood. The light that glowed from the inside of the cabin was the only thing lighting up the pitch darkness around it on the outside, but dimly. Inside of the home was just as macabre as the outside.

A spider web nestled in a corner of the one room cabin - the home of a black widow, sitting on it like a saint. There was a small desk thrown together by a few planks and rusty nails with an oil lamp glowing on the far left corner, which lit up the entire cabin. A few fuzzy green blankets were on the floor, which seemed to be the most comfortable things there, and the smell of waste swirled up from a bitty blue bucket by the only door. The four windows, one on each side of the cabin, were extremely thin. The one by the door had a crack in it that looked a bit like the spider web and each window had stained white, cloudless curtains that swayed hauntingly.

A 1995, Rio Red Mustang GT, parked at the corner of the cabin where the black widow rested. She oozed a glare through her eyes up at the widow. Her sage green stare was deadly. Her paint had a thin layer of dust on it, while dried mud was splattered on her quarter panels. Her license plate was covered by old duct tape that's been slapped on a while ago and the rubber of her tires were blistered.

She turned her front tires inward, pressing hard into the wooden flooring of the cabin. The wood squealed for mercy under her pressure and she clenched her teeth.

"Miss. Widow," she growled, "Ain't you supposed to be intimidating?"

As gravelly as her voice was, the widow stayed put, not intimidated one bit. The Mustang dug her treads deeper into the wood. The floorboards flexed under her tires to the point where they didn't even squeal anymore - they just suffered silently.

"I believe I was talking to you, missy."

The widow still didn't move.

"Not talking, hm?" her tongue slipped out through her pursed lips and gently wet them, "Well then, seems like one of us is gonna have to do somethin' about that."

Suddenly, the front door of the cabin kicked open, slamming against the wall. The Mustang's tires released from the wood, her eyes widening, her pupils constricting, her gas tank turning, and her engine sinking. She spun her body to the door fast, revealing to her eyes a tall silhouette of a truck idling in the doorway with his headlights off. The Mustang quickly flashed on her high beams. Her teeth were still clenched as she aimed the beams at the truck's eyes, burning them into his corneas.

"Ow! Ow!"

The Mustang looked closer at the truck and bit the inside of her cheek. She rolled her eyes and turned off her headlights, "Dammit, Burner. I told you to rev or something out there. You can't jus' keep on comin' in here that quiet," she stomped her tire, "One of these days, I might shoot ya, and I ain't lookin' forward to cleanin' up your nuts," she cleared her throat, "Or your bolts, either."

"I forgot..," he exhaled, "I'm sorry, Vermella."

Burner was a tall 1992, Jewel Green Bronco, but his voice could be mistaken for a sweet little Volkswagen. His paint sparkled in the glow of the oil lamp and the glow also complimented his chestnut eyes. He smiled, "That was a pretty rough chase, huh? I told you that one day you'd get mixed up in a close call."

"Just close the damn door."

Burner shut his jaw. It wasn't the first time he's been spoken to like that by Vermella, but no matter how many times she did, he just couldn't bring himself to get used to it. He nodded his hood to her and he gently shut the door, "I brought us somethin' to eat."

Vermella raised a lid and drove over to the window, lifting the curtain slightly to peek out of it, "And you didn't bring those damn sheriffs," she slapped the curtain off of her tire, "Good."

"I'm sorry, Ver - oh - oh never mind.."

Vermella started to roll back over to Burner, "So? What'd you bring me?"

Burner rose a bit on his axles, seeing that he had her attention again, "I brought us some honey mesquite."

Her eyelids furrowed, "Don't you have anythin' else? Somethin' warm? Somethin' you can put on a plate and rip apart with a knife? Somethin' that ain't gonna make me hungry in twenty minutes?"

He shrugged his axles, "Sorry…there aren't many stores out here where someone who is a friend-"

"You ain't my friend," she hissed.

"...-of a car who just tried to shoot someone…can go...to...," he hummed, bringing his voice back from trailing off, "There aren't any stores for miles anyway."

They both stared at each other silently for a few seconds, until Burner started to get somewhat uncomfortable in her eyes. He pulled his eyes away from her, "I guess since you're not one to shop, you wouldn't know anyway."

"Anyone follow you?" she asked him.

"I think the last thing a car wants to do is follow a Bronco in the middle of the desert."

"Right, 'cause you trucks start to smell a bit funny from all them spots you can't reach good in a car wash. Smellin' like roadkill," she licked her lips. "And speakin' of that..I can go for some right now. You see any jackrabbits around?"

Burner cringed, "No..no, I didn't."

"Hit any?"

"No.."

"Chase any?"

"No!" Burner's eyes widened and he quickly brought a tire over his mouth.

Vermella snarled, "Did you just yell at me?"

"No.."

"I thought so."

He nodded with a shiver, bringing himself over to the small desk and opening up his trunk. Vermella rolled her eyes and drove over to help him get the honey mesquite out and onto the table. She picked the pods out in twos, placing them on the table in a line. As she worked on getting the food out, Burner took a nice look around the cabin himself. It wasn't the first time he's been there, but he never could take it all in. He looked at the windows, the blankets on the floor, the spider in the corner, and his eyelids furrowed as an awful scent started to swirl into his grille. He tried to match his sight with his smell, and the only thing he could find himself bringing his eyes to was the bucket. The rancid scent irritated his senses.

Vermella was still working; and that meant Vermella couldn't be bothered. A lot of cars would always joke around when they said, "If you bother me, I'll hurt you," but not this Mustang. Definitely not Vermella. Still, Burner always had a feeling that she needed him more than she'd like to think, and he also felt that somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that too, so he might have been able to get away with a lot more than others.

His throat was feeling dry already just from the mere thought of getting yelled - or worse - but one thing Vermella always did was give to cars what they gave to her, and since all Burner ever did, practically committing his life to it on this night, was help her. So it would only make sense to him that Vermella would help him tonight. He licked his lips thinking: here goes nothing.

"Vermella?"

She continued taking the pods out, "Mm."

Seems good so far, he thought.

"I have to pee..," he pulled his lips in and blew out his cheeks, rolling his eyes at his choice of words, thinking that he asked way too fast and she was going to say no along with an insult.

She pointed over to the bucket by the door. Burner looked in his mirror and followed Vermella's tire to where she was pointing. When he saw the soiled bucket again, already filled with her waste, he lowered on his axles and swallowed hard, "Do I have to use that?"

Vermella reached up and slammed his trunk shut, "You gonna use it and you gonna like it. I ain't gonna take a chance of gettin' caught 'cause of your DNA somewhere out in the desert."

Burner cringed at the slam, and he felt his bumper starting to sting a bit, "You wouldn't have to feel scared about me using the bathroom outside if you didn't drag me into this.."

Vermella drifted to his front end and looked him right in the eye, "First of all, I ain't scared of nothin'. Second of all, you followed me," she gestured to his body with her tire, "Because you ain't got any horsepower of your own."

Burner swallowed hard. Who was he kidding? She was right. He wasn't that tough guy everyone thought he was at first sight. How embarrassing. His entire existence, at least physically, was a lie. Burner didn't choose his body, so he never felt like he needed to follow the label.

"I'm tellin' ya," Vermella continued, "Look at ya."

Burner looked down at himself, just like he was told. All he saw, in the reflection of his hood, was a failure of a Bronco. He stared himself in the eye; into the eyes of a coward.

"You were born a coward and built as tough as nails," she scoffed, turning away from him to the black widow, "What a waste."

He cringed at her words. Every one of them, all of them were right. What good was having that body, if he wasn't going to use it? He would be able to answer that question if he even knew how to be a Bronco.

"You see that bitch right here?" she asked him. Burner's attention was caught by the vulgar. He looked up at Vermella, "Yeah..I see her.."

She looked at him in her mirrors, noticing that he was staring at her and not the spider, "I said _that_ bitch," she pointed.

Burner corrected his sight immediately and nodded, "There she is.."

"You see how tiny she is?"

"Yes, ma'am.."

"She got more man in her fangs than you got in the tiniest bolt in your body."

Burner's axles tightened up, "Yes...yes, ma'am.."

"Go on and kill her. I'll get her for ya," she rolled up to the web and brought an axle up to catch her.

"Wait..don't!"

Vermella turned to him, "What's the matter?"

"I'll work on it, okay?" Burner pulled himself from her stare again.

Vermella was done with him for the night. She's tried many times to change him in the past, but she failed again. The man - boy - couldn't even kill a spider.

"Get out of 'ere," she said, "And go find somewhere to sleep. 'Cause you ain't sleepin' here."

Burner didn't have to be told twice. He quickly turned on out of that cabin as fast as he could.


End file.
